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What does the term “Animation” mean?

The term “animation” describes a series of still images moving quickly to create the illusion of movement. Animation can be created by hand or through the use of a computer and is used in a wide variety of media such as computer games, television shows, the internet, images, movies and videos.

Two traditional methods of animation

There are many different methods of animation. These include:

·         Flipbook

·         Computer generated

·         Claymation

·         Hand drawn

·         Stop motion

One of the people who pioneered animation in there method was Walt Disney. Walt Disney was a pioneer hand drawn animation; he perfected its use and created some of the most amazing and memorable animations such as the Mickey Mouse cartoons, the vast amount of films (such as Cinderella, Alice in wonderland and Peter pan). To perfect his animation technique, he would draw the first image and then use it as a trace for his other images. This would make sure his images were fluent and didn’t contain any errors.

Two people who pioneered animation in there method were John Whitney Jr and Gary Demos. John Whitney Jr and Gary Demos were pioneers for computer animation because they were responsible for the first use of CGI in a feature movie. The movie in question was Westworld. They needed to use CGI in the movie to portray the androids point of view. They achieved this by pixelating the screen and changing the colour whenever the movie wanted the viewer to see what the robot was seeing.

Computer Animation techniques - how movement is achieved

There are 4 different ways in which movement is achieved in computer animation. These are:

·         Frame by frame

·         Tweening

·         Morphing

·         Masking

Frame by frame – frame by frame is a term used for when still images are played in a sequence one frame after another. It is a common form of animation and is the most basic of computer animation. For example if I created an image in a frame and then tweaked that image in the following frames, when I played them in a loop it would seem as if the pictures were moving.

Tweening – Tweening is the term used for when an image seemingly flows into the next. It is used when still images need to be given flawless motion but cannot due to ruggedness or choppy images. For example if I created an animation of a person walking which looked like a robot walking, I could use Tweening to smooth it out so it would look more like a person walking rather than a robot.

Morphing – Morphing is the term used for when an image changes into a different image. Morphing involves one image overlapping an image while it changes into it. For example in the original incredible hulk T.V. series, masking would be used to change Bruce banner into the hulk. It would be done by taking the two images in separate frames and creating a sort of transition effect between them.

Masking – Masking is the term used for concealing or revealing an image using a mask. A mask can be anything from a basic shape, an image, a part of the image or an effect such as a colour changer. They are used most commonly for highlighting specific parts of an image which would catch the viewers’ attention. An example of masking would be whenever you look through a scope in a video game. The users screen shows what can be seen through the scope and the rest of the screen is usually blacked out, so that they can only see a circle.